Electronic reconnaissance, surveillance, and security monitoring activities (hereinafter referred to collectively as “electronic surveillance”) have become an integral investigation tool for both military and civilian organizations alike. While by no means a complete list, tasks such as hostage rescue, terrorist response, drug raids, building searches, facility monitoring, and site contamination investigation may all benefit from information provided by surveillance systems.
Such electronic surveillance may be by mounted video cameras or may be provided by portable mobile robots. These robots may travel into areas deemed unsafe or otherwise unfriendly to humans and relay information back to remote personnel typically by wireless means, such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,548,982 (the “'982 patent”), which is incorporated by reference herein.
A number of existing surveillance robots incorporate wheels as their primary mode of maneuverability and ground traction. A major drawback of such wheels, however, is a limited climbing ability. In particular, the size of a robot's wheels generally dictates how large of an object the robot can climb. Cost and functionality-related constraints, however, generally do not permit the use of wheels having a radius above a certain size. For example, wheels that are too large would increase weight, visibility, and throwing difficulty, all of which would detract from the overall effectiveness of the robot. As a result, wheel size cannot be indefinitely increased as a means to improve the climbing ability of surveillance robots.
Many existing surveillance robots use wheels that prevent the robot from climbing over objects as small as 0.5-inch in height. It would be desirable to have a two-wheeled robot capable of climbing over obstacles that are 1.5 to 2 inches or more in height without substantially increasing the radius of the wheel.
As previously indicated, surveillance robots are often utilized in hostile environments. As a result, the robots are thrown by the user across a certain distance from a safe location to another, possibly dangerous location. The impact resulting from the robot striking an object such a wall or the ground can potentially harm the electronic component. Therefore, there is a need for improvements in absorbing impact-related forces in a manner that reduces the potential for damage to the robot.
There is a further need to improve weight balance and stabilization, provide an attachment point for hauling additional objects with the surveillance robot, and reduce the noise and friction associated with the robot.